"People could have lost their lives." - Harrisburg Mayor Eric Papenfuse

HARRISBURG — The church was, in the eyes of city code enforcement, “dangerous, unsafe and unfit for human habitation.”

Between its "failing roofline" and "loose and falling bricks," the structure posed "an extremely hazardous condition to the public."

Yet for nearly six years, nothing was done.

Harrisburg officials released 79 pages of records Monday, dating back to 2008. The reports document futile efforts by the city to get a prominent local religious leader to deal with a dilapidated church that partially collapsed Friday.

City officials quickly compiled and publicized the information to show they repeatedly warned Interdenominational Ministers’ Conference of Greater Harrisburg President Bishop A.E. Sullivan Jr. before Friday's roof collapse that has forced residents from their homes until further notice.

Code inspectors first condemned the 114-year-old building Jan. 8, 2009, a few months after violation citations began.

The 2009 order states the property owner needs to fix or demolish the church immediately.

Sullivan’s attorney Sandra Thompson had said her client wasn't told to tear down the structure.

Thompson spoke in the wake of Sullivan’s arrest Friday night on public nuisance and reckless endangerment charges in relation to the roof collapse. Neither returned calls Monday.

“People could have lost their lives,” said Harrisburg Mayor Eric Papenfuse. “Bringing misdemeanor charges [against Sullivan] is extremely appropriate.”

While the site’s history of violations played a role, the emergency created by the roof collapse pushed the situation into new, more serious territory, warranting more severe charges than previously contemplated, Papenfuse said.

It's also more than half Harrisburg's demolition budget for all of 2014, according to Papenfuse and Patton.

The city also needs to hire contractors or rent equipment for at least part of the job, because it doesn’t have the machinery needed to properly demolish buildings as high as the five-story church, said Patton and Papenfuse.

Patton, who’s been on the job for nearly 20 years, noted that “nothing Machiavellian” is behind the city's failure to take matters into its own hands previously.

The city typically performs about 30 demolitions annually on a budget of about $500,000.

Code violation citations against Sullivan and his Victory Outreach Christian Church started in October 2008, and continued until March 2011. That's the year Sullivan, now 48, was named IMC president, its youngest ever.

Sullivan's website indicates he has visited Brazil this year, and plans to visit The Philippines, Pakistan, Binin, Togo and Ghana.

It’s also unclear what his intentions were when he bought the property in 2008.

Over the weekend, Thompson told PennLive that the church was found to be structurally sound by engineers. She said Saturday that they couldn’t produce documentation of that assessment because the report was in storage.

The report was compiled around 2010, said Thompson.

Five citations were issued that year for code violations at the property.

Another four were issued in 2011, documents show.

Even though charges weren't pursued again until 2013, the tally was enough to land Sullivan among the top 11 code violators in Harrisburg, according to a list released Monday by city spokeswoman Joyce Davis.

Some own multiple properties.

But Sullivan’s sole holding in Dauphin County is the church, records show.

County court records list the defendant in each instance as Victory Outreach Christian Church, even though Sullivan is listed in property records as the owner of the site.

Victory Outreach lacks an official website.

Same goes for Sullivan's Gospel Truth Global Apostolic Network. His ministry website says the network includes more than 5,750 churches in 53 nations.

"The late Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, 'Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.' This is a timeless truth. The IMC knows that God sits high and looks down low. God is yet on the throne. We are yet singing, 'We have come this far by faith, leaning on the Lord, trusting in His holy Word, He's never failed us, no. Let the Church say, Amen."

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